Middle East Experts, pt. 2

Ayaan Hirsi Ali today in the LA Times:

Western feminism still defines the white man as the oppressor, but right now it's the brown man, the black man, the yellow man. When you tell them, "Stop oppressing your women," they'll tell you, "Don't impose your culture on me." It would have been fantastic if, when [President] Obama went to Cairo, he [had said], "We have taught the white man that bigotry is bad and he has given it up, at least most of it. Now bigotry is committed in the name of the black man, the brown man, the yellow man, whatever color."

We [the White Man?] have taught the White Man that bigotry is bad and he has given it up. She actually gets paid to think like this (but by AEI, so you know, whatever). And since she is paid by the John M. Olin Foundation and some defense contractors to sit on panels and attend receptions, she has a few things to tell those lazy immigrants about hard work and entrepreneurship:

The United States is not a welfare state. American Muslims have to have a job. European [nations] are welfare states so you have a lot of poor people who depend on the state for their survival. That makes it very attractive for radicals. I hope that American Muslims are different. But that does not make America immune to radical Islam.

But wait: she's a radical too!

I am a radical individual freedom fighter or defender of individual freedom.

So what she's saying is, "in the United States you have a lot of rich people who depend on the state apparatus, including nominally private-sector policy-making institutions, for the maintenance of their luxurious lifestyles and aspirations to world domination. That makes it very attractive for radical individual freedom fighters." Of course it is attractive: such individuals will always find nice jobs in some quasi- governmental institution.

I had not read the LA Times before this week. It is absolutely stuffed with think tankers.